Glinton-Meicholas, Patricia

Bahamian-born PATRICIA GLINTON-MEICHOLAS, writer, editor, cultural critic and academic, is an honours graduate of the University of the West Indies and the University of Miami.

Recognized nationally for her contributions to Bahamian literature, she was first winner of the Bahamas Cacique Award for Writing (1995) and recipient of a Silver Jubilee of Independence Medal for Literature (1998). She was the first woman to present the prestigious Sir Lynden Pindling Memorial Lecture (Nassau, 2005).

Her books include An Evening in Guanima (short stories based on Bahamian folktale motifs), the novel, A Shift in the Light, and two volumes of poetry (No Vacancy in Paradise and Robin's Song). She co-wrote Bahamian Art 1492 to 1992 and contributed to the Macmillan Dictionary of Art. Her story 'The Gaulin Wife' appears in the Penguin anthology Under the Storyteller's Spell (1988). A monograph on Bahamian folktales was published in the Encuentros series of the Inter-American Development Bank Cultural Centre. Her most recent book is Years of Favour, a 264-page history and pictorial of the Roman Catholic Archdiocese of The Bahamas 1960-2010 (with P. Neko Meicholas and Carla Glinton).

She has also written and directed several historical documentaries for television.

CHASING LIGHT is Patricia Glinton-Meicholas's third book of poetry and a finalist for the International Proverse Prize 2012.

A challenging and controversial complexity of opinion pervades the collection, accurately signaled by the double-entendre of the title. Taken as a whole, the poems express concern for humankind worldwide, with a particular emphasis on the life of women, particularly those with an African or Caribbean heritage.

Glinton-Meicholas speaks equally for those she imagines to live colourless, passionless lives and those whose private relations are ample and fulfilling. She responds to regional and international events, particularly the troubles brought by local politics and attitudes, and by war.

The poems show a person passionately aware and caring, conscious of deity in various manifestations and hoping for the world's salvation from this source. Nevertheless she acknowledges that man has free-will and that it is for man to exercise his free-will to solve or avoid problems.

The writing -- with occasional lines in creole -- is sophisticated and rewards close attention from the reader.

"Patricia Glinton-Meicholas’s poetry is regional and indigenous, but also universal. As a writer, editor, cultural critic and academic, she evinces a cosmopolitan worldview, blending a global consciousness with a Caribbean and Bahamian spirit deeply influenced by her African roots. Glinton-Meicholas’s dedication to the fuller liberation and well-being of women is urgent and passionate…. She masters and revels in the English language, employing it with finesse and grace, exuberantly and meticulously.

… Chasing light thrills us with the hope of what is yet to arise from her imagination and from her influence on a new generation of Bahamian authors."

– Sir Arthur Foulkes,Governor General, Bahamas

Patricia Glinton-Meicholas, was honoured by a launch of her book "Chasing Light", at the National Art Gallery, Nassau, The Bahamas, on Wednesday, 12 March. The Governor, Sir Arthur Foulkes and Lady Foulkes lent their patronage and Sir Arthur gave a speech. ﻿

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